I am exceedingly tired. I slept like absolute garbage last night — although I suspect literal garbage actually probably sleeps quite well — and have been feeling the effects all day: a complete inability to focus, a total lack of desire to do anything apart from "just go back to bed", and just a general feeling of "ugh".
I'm not really sure why I slept so badly last night — conditions in the bedroom (ooer) weren't particularly different from any other given evening, as we had the air conditioning blasting, I had my blackout sleep mask on with some calming noises playing, but still I kept waking up, feeling uncomfortable and/or needing a piss. At 4am I got up and evacuated what must have been over a litre of piss from my body. That'll learn me for Hydrating.
I'm going to get an early night tonight, I think, so I am writing this post in good time to be able to do that, and I'm probably going to skip a walk around the Common this evening also. There are times when you have to listen to your body, and my body right now is telling me that it needs some decent rest. So that's the plan for later tonight, at least.
In the meantime, I have plenty I could be doing, but I think I'm probably going to play some more Terranigma this evening. I've been playing a lot of Splatoon Raiders — it's a great "lunchtime game" with how bite-sized each individual "raid" is — and I want to make some progress on Terranigma. Interestingly, my video on its immediate predecessor, Illusion of Time, overtook my video on Soul Blazer in a fraction of the time in terms of views. Neither have done amazingly in terms of total views, but as I always say: the views are not why I'm doing this. I do this because it's fun, and because it's nice to have a sort of record of the things you've experienced and your thoughts about them.
Same reason why MoeGamer exists, really. I have loved writing about the games I have enjoyed ever since I was a young child — I bet my parents still have the ring binder with all my dot-matrix printouts of "reviews" I wrote when I was a kid somewhere — and I don't see that changing any time soon. It's my way of just sort of "getting a bit more" out of an already rewarding and fulfilling hobby. The feeling of creating something, even if it's just some blurted-out thoughts representing your opinion about something, is always satisfying — and I can look back over both this site and MoeGamer and feel pride in what I've created to date, and excitement for what is still to come.
Also it gives me a sort of perverse pleasure that MoeGamer has now lasted considerably longer than the site I was laid off from when I made it in the first place. I guess passion will always trump commercial interests.
Anyway! That was a random string of consciousness, for which I make no apologies. I am off to have some dinner, play Terranigma and then at least attempt to be in a position conducive to getting some sleep before the clock strikes midnight.
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Once upon a time, there was a website called Bitmob, whose users would get quite upset if you capitalised it "BitMob". On that site, the community could publish their own articles, and those which caught the attention of the site's staff would get featured on the front page. It was a great way for a lot of people to get their first taste of being published online; indeed, a number of people whose work I first saw on Bitmob have gone on to have successful careers elsewhere in the games industry — with notable examples including Mike Minotti and Jeff Grubb from Giant Bomb.
I was fortunate enough to have my work featured on the site on a few occasions, with my most popular piece by far being an adaptation of Bayonetta's opening scene as if graphics didn't exist and the entire thing unfolded as a text adventure. (Aside: attempting to track down an archive of this is how I learned that most of Bitmob's original site content is still online, but some "Software as a Service", probably AI-related company appears to be leeching off the site's SEO from back in the day.)
Anyway, in the absence of anything else to write about (although right now I could write something about companies leeching off past sites' SEO… we'll save that for another day though, as this absolutely will not be the last time I come across this phenomenon, I'm sure) I thought I would do the same for my walk around the Common this evening. Are you ready? Let us begin.
You inexpertly guide your little car into the narrow parking space and realise that you have parked a little too close to the car next to you, so you reverse out and manoeuvre yourself into what you think is a slightly more advantageous position. When you attempt to open your car door, you realise that you have not, in fact, made things any better at all. Giving up before humiliating yourself further, you squeeze through the slightly too narrow gap between your car and its neighbour, and prepare to face the early evening.
A WALK ON THE COMMON Copyright (c) 2026 Petefocom, Inc. All rights reserved. A WALK ON THE COMMON is a registered trademark of Petefocom, Inc. Version 69 / Serial number 420069
Cemetery Road, Car Park You are in the car park of the common — actually just a narrow side street with some parking spaces demarcated down one side. The sun is low in the sky, such that it is difficult to look in a westerly direction, and the air is warm and a little humid.
The road (and car park) continues to the northwest. To the southeast, you can hear the rushing traffic of The Avenue.
Your car is here.
What would you like to do? > INVENTORY
You are carrying: Your keys Your wallet Your phone A pair of headphones (worn) Your watch (worn) Clothes (worn)
What next? > REMOVE CLOTHES
You feel that would probably be a bad idea while you're out in public. Also, in a park? Talk about clichéd. If you're going to streak, do it somewhere a bit more imaginative.
What next? > SE
You came all this way to have a walk in the park. No point turning back now. And anyway, if you want to go back that way, you're better off getting into your car.
What next? > EXAMINE WATCH
This is a fancy-pants fitness tracker thingy that your wife got you. She wasn't dropping a hint; you had indicated that you might be interested in using one in an attempt to actually get fit.
The watch's display is off.
[You won't see "What next?" any more.] > TURN ON WATCH
The watch's display lights up immediately. A picture of Patti, one of your cats, greets you, along with the time. It is 7.30pm.
> USE WATCH
Please be more specific about how you want to use the watch.
> TRACK FITNESS
I don't know how to "TRACK" something.
> START WATCH
You flick the screen over to the right, choose the "Walking" activity and wait for the countdown to begin.
Your watch begins tracking your steps.
> LOOK AT PHONE
Your phone has the album "Black Sabbath" by Black Sabbath cued up and ready to go. The play button looks inviting.
> PRESS PLAY
Your phone starts blaring Black Sabbath at full volume. You quickly press the Pause button. Perhaps you should turn the headphones on first.
> TURN ON HEADPHONES
You turn on the headphones. They make a soft "beep" sound, then a second "beep" to indicate they have connected to your phone.
> PRESS PLAY
Black Sabbath begins to play inside your head, thanks to your cheap and cheerful bone-conducting headphones. Now you're really ready to get started.
> NW
Cemetery Road, Carriage Drive Entrance You've reached the end of the "car park" section of Cemetery Road. The road itself continues a short distance to the northwest, but becomes a dead end shortly thereafter. A path into the Common itself proceeds to the north. Painted white letters on the ground indicate that this particular pathway is known as "Carriage Drive South".
> N
You begin walking.
Carriage Drive South You've entered the Common proper. To the south is Cemetery Road and the car park. Either side of you are some pleasantly rustling trees. Carriage Drive continues in a northerly direction for a short distance.
> N
Carriage Drive Corner Carriage Drive makes a sharp turn here. Squinting against the low, early evening sun, you can just about see an small lake behind a fence in the distance to the west. One of several entrances to the Common lies to the south.
A man with no shirt on zooms past you. He is upsettingly toned and even more upsettingly sweaty. You cannot even begin to imagine what it would feel like to be able to move at that speed using nothing but your own legs.
There is a Really Good Dog here. And their owner too, I guess.
> LOOK AT MAN
He's long gone. You're not sure you want anything to do with him, anyway. Just being in his presence for less than a second made you feel inferior.
> LOOK AT DOG
Are all dogs good dogs? It doesn't matter, because this one is.
> W
Near Cemetery Lake Thus named because it's near the cemetery, not because they've buried people in it — not to your knowledge, anyway — Cemetery Lake is a filthy but nonetheless relatively picturesque pond that occupies a space to the north of the path you're currently on, behind a fence. A bunch of ducks are languidly paddling around on the grimy surface of the water, evidently looking for remnants of the last generous visitors. Carriage Drive proceeds to the east and west.
> N
You can't go in that direction. The fence is in the way.
> CLIMB FENCE
You don't think that would be a good idea. Not only are you not good at climbing things, you also have an excellent talent for hurting yourself quite badly when doing things you are not good at.
A child riding the tiniest bicycle you have ever seen wobbles past, followed a few seconds later by what looks like a long-suffering parent.
> W
Park's Edge Corner You sense you're quite close to the edge of the park, as you think you can hear traffic on the other side of the bushes. The path makes another sharp turn here, proceeding to the north, parallel to the edge of the park, or to the east, back towards Cemetery Lake.
You think you can smell weed.
> N
Park's Edge The pathway continues in a north-south direction. Trees flank the path on both sides, giving the area a pleasant "tunnel of green" look.
You can definitely smell weed.
> N
Suspicious Bushes The greenery thins out a little on one side to reveal a clearing with a bench, and some bushes behind it. The bushes look suspicious. You figure that if you were going to get up to no good, these would be some great bushes to do it in. The pathway continues in a north-south direction.
The smell of weed seems to be coming from the direction of the bushes.
> LOOK AT BUSHES
You figure they're probably having a nice time without you. Leave them be.
A woman wearing a pair of shorts that are so tight you think they might just be painted on jogs past.
> LOOK AT WOMAN
Before you are able to make a definitive determination of whether or not the shorts are real or just an illusion, she is long gone.
> N
Junction You've reached the point where several paths meet. To the west is one of the Common's numerous exits. The pathway continues to the north, southeast and south.
A child, in tears and holding a balloon, waddles along the path, closely followed by a mother who looks about ready to murder someone.
Through your headphones, Black Sabbath is interrupted by the robotic voice of your watch indicating that you have successfully completed a kilometre in 14 minutes and 59 seconds.
> POP BALLOON
As entertaining at that would be, you unfortunately don't have anything sharp on you.
The child and distraught mother pass by. The former's wails fade into the distance, and an almost tangible air of despair follows shortly afterwards.
> SE
The Flats This area of the Common is called The Flats, because it's really flat. It's also the widest open space on the whole Common, and the place where events tend to happen. Right now, in the heat of the summer, all the grass is dead, the whole place looks like a desert and nothing much is going on, other than a few kids having a half-hearted kickabout. So much for "public green spaces". The path continues to the southeast, and reaches a junction to the northwest.
The upsettingly toned man runs past again. You wish he would put a shirt on.
> SE
The Flats, Starting Lines This part of The Flats is evidently where they start races of various descriptions, because there are two starting lines: one red, one blue. Judging by other markings on the path of the same colour, the red route is about 2.5km in length, while the blue route is 3.5km. The pathway continues into a wooded area in the southeast, and back to the middle of The Flats to the northwest.
A woman jogs up the path in the opposite direction to you. The pockets on her shorts appear to be inside-out and are flapping up and down in a mildly distracting manner as she bobs along at her own pace.
> TALK TO WOMAN
Are you mad? Talking to a stranger? You are not only autistic, you are also British. Besides, she looks busy.
> NW
Not to artificially constrain your adventure, but for the purposes of this blog post's tortuously convoluted narrative I will remind you that this is the direction you just arrived from, and thus you probably want to go southeast.
> SE
Near The Hawthorns You're in a wooded area of the Common, close to a small building that proclaims itself the "Hawthorns Urban Wildlife Centre". The gate to the Centre is closed and locked. The pathway gradually bends around to the south, and proceeds in the other direction, towards the Flats, to the northwest.
> OPEN GATE
I mean, I did tell you it was locked, but you had to go and check for yourself, didn't you? The gate is locked. Now perhaps you might give your narrator a bit of respect.
> S
The Corner of the Common You've reached the corner of the Common. A gate kind-of sort-of blocks the path in such a way that vehicles wouldn't be able to drive in, but people can still get around. To the northwest is the Cemetery Road car park, and the pathway proceeds towards the Hawthorns Urban Wildlife Centre to the north.
The upsettingly toned man runs past again. You feel like he is accelerating. You begin to wonder if, were you to keep walking, he would eventually reach infinite velocity, then realise that this is probably a rather silly thing to wonder and go back to wishing he would put a shirt on his sweaty, rippling, muscly back.
> CURSE MAN
You mutter a curse under your breath. To your surprise, the man bursts into flames with a horrifying scream. A moment later, the screams have ceased, and there is nothing more than a pile of ash on the floor. That'll learn him.
> NW
Cemetery Road, Car Park
Your car is here.
Through your headphones, Black Sabbath is interrupted by the robotic voice of your watch indicating that you have successfully completed two kilometres in 29 minutes and 26 seconds.
Congratulations! You have completed A WALK ON THE COMMON. You probably shouldn't have murdered that man, but how were you to know that you were capable of inflicting truly horrific curses just with the power of your mind? No-one will ever believe it was you, anyway.
Probably.
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One of the things I always try and remember is that, from a mental health perspective, it can be valuable to celebrate the small victories, however inconsequential you think they might seem to others, or however minor they might feel in comparison to some of the things they are dealing with. Successfully overcoming something is always a thing worth patting yourself on the back for, and thus today I would like to do just that for myself.
I mentioned the other day that I had been going through the basics of DaVinci Resolve, largely out of necessity because my prior video editor of choice, Hitfilm Express, is no longer available — and, indeed, the company that made it no longer exists, it seems. I had been putting off learning DaVinci Resolve for the longest time because it's the sort of application that you open up and you can feel its UI laughing at you. "You'll never know what all these buttons are for," it says. "You may as well just close me right now and not even bother."
Well, today I decided that I was going to put my three chapters' worth of training to the test and edit myself a YouTube video. And, to my great pleasure, it was immediately just as straightforward as the last seven years I've spent using Hitfilm Express. Yes, there are a number of differences between the two applications — most notably that DaVinci Resolve is a considerably more complex, fully-featured program that can do other things besides editing video — but it seems that I have successfully ported over all the important knowledge from Hitfilm Express to DaVinci Resolve.
I haven't yet done everything in DaVinci Resolve that I used to do in Hitfilm Express — notably, I still need to learn how to do titles and keyframe-based animation and compositing — but taking on the relatively simple project that I did today has given me the confidence to explore the application further, either with or without the training manual by my side. After all, I learned Hitfilm without any real training material — most of the knowledge there I ported over from past experience with Final Cut Pro on Mac, which again, had its own way of doing certain things.
When tackling anything like this, it's taking that first step that is always the most difficult. In fact, I'd go so far as to say when doing pretty much anything, the first step is always the hardest — whether you're talking about working on an elaborate project, or simply motivating yourself to stand up and go and do something with your day.
I have proven myself victorious over several little things like that today — firstly, getting off the sofa and recording the voiceover for my video, then actually going through and editing the thing, and finally, troubleshooting a little issue I had with the export — and I am officially giving myself a pat on the back for my achievements. Now I can spend the remainder of the evening Doing Something Fun without any sort of guilt or feelings of obligation whatsoever.
Getting rid of those feelings of guilt and obligation completely are a whole other matter, of course, but one step at a time and all that. One step at a time.
Oh, and here's the vid, if you want to watch it:
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I'm having one of those days where my brain feels restless, where it feels like I "should" be doing something, but as far as I am aware, I have no commitments this weekend whatsoever, so I should just be taking the time to relax, enjoy myself and mentally prepare for the week ahead. (There's nothing particularly special about the week ahead, either, just the weekend is generally a good time to mentally prepare yourself for actually having to do things for, like, your job and stuff.)
I'm unsure where this particular anxiety stems from, but it's not an altogether uncommon phenomenon. It seems it is most frequently associated with ADHD, which I have not been formally diagnosed with, but which from talking to people who do have it, I recognise a lot of the things they mention — much like I did with autism before I went and got myself diagnosed. I'm not in any great hurry to get myself diagnosed in that regard, though I suspect, as with the autism diagnosis, that having it confirmed (or otherwise) might help me to think about my own brain in a more helpful way.
But regardless! That doesn't fix the immediate issue, which is my brain is currently doing somersaults wondering what I should actually do today. And it's not as if I have a shortage of options. I could play some Final Fantasy XI, now I am into the Treasures of Aht Urhgan expansion. I could play some Terranigma, which I started the other day and enjoyed a lot. I could play some Splatoon Raiders, which I am also having fun with. I could record a voiceover for my Illusion of Time video and then edit said video now that I have learned the basics of DaVinci Resolve. I could even record some voiceovers for some work videos and get those out of the way if I really wanted to.
Or I could do something completely different. I could actually leave the house for some reason, perhaps pay a visit to CEX in town and see if they have anything interesting. I could go for a walk on the common (although I feel like the exact time I'm typing this is probably not the best time to do that, given how hot and humid it appears to be outside, so I will probably save that for later). I could pull down a random game from the shelf and give that a go. I could do some creative writing. I could write about a game I've been playing recently. I could record some Let's Play-style videos (again, I think it might be a bit too hot to do that right now). I could learn what "colour grading" is. I could practice some Japanese.
This is the problem, y'see. The problem is not that I have nothing to do, it's that I have a lot of options for what I could do, and pretty much all of them would be enjoyable and/or fulfilling in some way. One might say that this means it doesn't really matter which one of them I pick, as I will be having an enjoyable and fulfilling experience regardless. But for some reason, when this sort of mental block strikes, it doesn't quite work like that; my brain starts to feel genuine anxiety over whether or not I am picking the "correct" or "best" option, whatever that means — and there really is no "correct" or "best" option here. There is nothing I have to do; there is nothing that will make my life significantly better or worse if I do or don't do it. So all I need to do is just… pick something.
My intent was to follow that paragraph with something along the lines of "So I'm off to go and… [x]". But as I went to type that, my brain started a tug-of-war process with itself, still worrying over whether or not I was making the right choice. So I'm going to set myself a firm but friendly ultimatum — without being aggressive or sergeant-majorish about it — and say that by the time I finish writing this paragraph, I will have made a decision of what to do for the immediate now, not necessarily the whole day, but for the period immediately following completing this paragraph. Whenever I finish this paragraph. I am absolutely, positively, definitely not stalling for time while I attempt to get my mind in order. Definitely not. Perish the thought! Who would do something like that, even? That's ridiculous. I can absolutely, definitely make a decision on what Nice Thing I would like to do today.
I'm going to go and play Terranigma for a bit. Then we'll see what happens from there.
There, see, that wasn't so hard, was it?
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After determining that the NVMe drive in my PC was kaputt, which is where the vast majority of the issues I've been having with this PC have stemmed from, I reluctantly reinstalled Windows… again. This is always a pain because it takes time to get the system back to how you liked it before — and, of course, there are times when software that you used to use just isn't available any more.
I knew that sooner or later I was going to have to confront the fact that Hitfilm Express, my video editor of choice for the last 7 years or so, no longer exists in any form, but I had been putting off learning the most commonly recommended replacement for free hobbyist video editing: DaVinci Resolve.
I've loaded up DaVinci Resolve before to have a look. I was immediately daunted by an incredibly complex-looking interface, closed it down and went back to Hitfilm Express. Now, however, I don't have that option, unless I want to spend time faffing around looking for a dodgy download of the old version of Hitfilm Express I was using, and spending even more time trying to track down my license key for it — a license key I can't just log in and retrieve, because although the software would still activate online with it last time I had to reinstall, the actual website for it is no longer in existence. Which is, y'know, nice.
Anyway, tonight I was at a bit of a loose end, so I decided I would bite the bullet, install DaVinci Resolve and start working through some initial tutorials. The people behind DaVinci Resolve are good enough to have a bunch of training materials on their website — including full written books (which you can either buy as a physical book or get a free PDF of) as well as the obligatory video tutorials. I work much better from a book than a video, so I am extremely grateful for them offering those free PDFs — though it's a little fiddly attempting to read it on the same screen I'm using DaVinci Resolve on, so I may try and upload it to my Kindle.
The Beginner's Guide to DaVinci Resolve that I've been following along today seems to be very good. It doesn't assume knowledge, but it also doesn't move at such a glacial pace that people like me, who have past experience with other video editing software, get bored and switch off. In a couple of hours this evening, I have probably built up enough basic knowledge of the software to be able to reasonably comfortably do most of the things I could confidently do in Hitfilm Express, with the exception of a few bits and bobs about keyframing, animations, titles and such.
I'm impressed with DaVinci Resolve thus far. Although its interface is maddeningly crammed — not at all uncommon in today's creative software, as anyone who has used a recent Adobe product will attest through gritted teeth — once you know what you're looking for, you can get things done very quickly in a variety of different ways: through menus, through drag-and-drop, and through keyboard shortcuts. I'm going to have to unlearn a few of the ways I did things in Hitfilm Express, to be sure, but since I was almost entirely self-taught on that software and doubtless only using a fraction of its capabilities, I don't think that's going to be too much of a problem.
I'm especially impressed by how easy it is to add things like transitions and basic motion graphics — it's so easy to do these things that it almost feels like cheating. It's also very flexible in how you can edit clips together — including replace, ripple, roll and slide edits — so I think it's going to be a lot of fun to get to grips with once I start using it for my own projects.
I'm going to keep working through the training material for the minute, though, as there are some things covered in there that I've never really learned — like colour grading, for example. I don't know how much detail a self-professed Beginner's Guide is going to go into in that regard — although there are further, more specialist books to work through after I've had my fill of this one — but it will be nice to have an understanding of something that, to date, has remained a bit of a mystery beyond "drag the sliders around a bit until you think it looks OK".
I have a few videos in the pipeline that I will need to edit soon — a bunch for work, and at least one personal project — so it will be interesting to put DaVinci Resolve to the full test by doing something other than a tutorial on it. But from my experiences thus far this evening, I think it's going to be less of an issue to make the switch to this program than I thought it was going to be — which is, frankly, a blessed relief.
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Splatoon Raiders arrived yesterday, a day earlier than I was expecting it, and I've been playing it. It's a good time! It's the latest in an increasingly long line of titles from Nintendo that feel like video games used to feel like. It's not trying to be a movie, it's not trying to be an overly elaborate piece of art, it's not trying to tell an in-depth story — it's just trying to be a fun, enjoyable game. And it's succeeding at that. (This is not to say that there is no artistry within the game itself, mind. Rather, attempting to "be a work of art" is not its primary focus.)
For the unfamiliar, Splatoon Raiders is a Nintendo Switch 2 game that, in contrast to the prior three Splatoon games, places the single-player experience at the forefront. Those of you who have never played a Splatoon game before may be surprised to note that there is, in fact, a single-player game in every Splatoon game, and even more surprised to hear that it has been consistently very good in the past — it's just very few people ever really talk about it, as the focus of the series has always been on its competitive multiplayer modes. And that's a pity, because although each game's single-player campaign is perhaps a little on the short side, they (and the DLC for the more recent ones) have been consistently excellent, featuring top-notch level design and some quality gameplay that blends action, platforming, puzzle solving and simple observation skills.
Splatoon Raiders is a little bit different. Although it unfolds in a series of self-contained levels, these are, for the most part, a tad more open than the rather linear, abstract levels of prior Splatoon campaigns. There are some stages that very much have the feel of classic single-player Splatoon — mostly the "Sample Dungeon" stages which challenge you to overcome a series of obstacles and encounters with a specific loadout — but on the whole, the focus is a bit different.
That's no bad thing, though, and one thing Splatoon Raiders does pretty well is keep things varied. On some levels you'll be fighting your way through a relatively linear path to an end point, where you receive a treasure. On others, you'll be in an arena, battling to defeat enough enemies to build up an energy bar before time expires. Some levels present you with a series of these arenas. Others still are more open, tasking you with building up energy by defeating enemies on a relatively large map until you are able to mine a large crystal and obtain its resources.
The very nature of the game means that there's not quite as much of the clever platforming and observation challenges of classic single-player Splatoon, but that's not to say it's completely absent. In fact, most of the non-arena stages have a series of hidden items on them, and tracking these down very much has the feel of the older Splatoon campaigns, because they will require you to go a bit off the beaten track, investigate interesting-looking areas and sometimes take a few risks. And the rewards are worthwhile; besides scrolls that contain lore, most of these stages also contain a compass, which unlocks access to a semi-secret level — one of the aforementioned "Sample Dungeons".
I'll doubtless have more to say about the game when I've played it a bit more, but so far I'm impressed. The "looter shooter" element provides plenty of interesting opportunities for progression — and incentive to try various different types of weapon — without being overly obnoxious or overloading you with pointless variants on the same equipment. A variety of simple and straightforward crafting systems allow you to unlock new abilities and features. And the ability to revisit past levels in "Spicy" mode provides alternatives for gathering materials and loot than simply grinding the same level over and over again.
The only thing I'm not entirely sure about is the music. I get why it is the way it is — it's an attempt to reflect the chaos of the battles in which you find yourself — but dear Lord, there are certain tracks that sound like a school orchestra tuning up and then immediately launching into a failed attempt to play the complete soundtrack to Darius. I would have much rather had music somewhat akin to what there was in the multiplayer matches of regular Splatoon, but you can't have everything I guess. It certainly creates an atmosphere of sorts, I'll give it that!
There will, of course, be a full write-up of Splatoon Raiders on MoeGamer when I'm satisfied that I've played enough of it to be able to speak with complete confidence about it. But for now, I'm happy to say that I'm having a good time, and I'm looking forward to playing some more!
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
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I've been for a walk out on the Common for the last three evenings. Tonight, I gave myself permission to take the evening off, because three days in a row is solid going, there is no need to go every single night, whatever the "sergeant major" part of my brain might say, plus my feet are a bit sore. Also I want to play Splatoon Raiders, which arrived today. However, I will be getting back out there tomorrow! You'll see that I will! (You probably won't. Unless you're stalking me, in which case please do not do that.)
I've been trying to get over a bit of a mental block for the easiest possible form of exercise, which is just going out for a walk. I do like walking around my neighbourhood — and heaven knows we did it a lot while Oliver was missing — but the unfortunate thing, as I'm sure I've mentioned in the past, is that we live on the top of quite a steep hill, meaning that whichever direction you set out from, you always end up having to climb said steep hill on the way back. Unless you do what I did on one excursion, which is to just keep walking and then catch the bus up the hill before walking the last little bit from the bus stop back to my house.
My trips to the Common are an attempt to get over that mental and physical block. The Common is relatively flat, you see, meaning that you can have a nice walk around it and not feel like any part of the journey is significantly more difficult than any other. There are a few undulations around the place — the route I've been taking is a slight incline on the way out, then very slightly downhill on the way back — but it's definitely manageable for someone in as poor physical condition as I am.
Also it's just a nice place to be. The Common has lots of different little areas within it — pleasantly secluded wooded areas (which I probably wouldn't go into after dark) and a nice wide open bit in the middle, which is where any Common-based events tend to go on. There's often a funfair or something in this big open bit, but right now, it's proper "big sky" territory.
One thing that is a little shocking, however, is how desert-like the whole thing looks right now after the heatwave. The grass is just dead. I've never seen it so bad, and I've always associated the Common with being, well, "green space". And to be sure, all the trees are still nice and leafy and green, but the ground… man, it looks more like what I imagine places like Arizona and Texas to look like than what I typically associate with England. (Important note: I have never been to Arizona or Texas and have also never really looked at photographs of what they actually look like.) It's a barren wasteland, and it's a little disheartening to see.
Still, I'm sure it's not the first time this has happened in recent memory — we've had similar heatwaves in the summer of the past few years, after all, and I actually haven't been to the Common for a while — so I'm sure it will recover as soon as we get a bit of rain. That isn't looking likely any time soon, admittedly, but as we pass through summer into autumn I'm sure it will get at least some of its green back. Maybe.
It is, however, a stark reminder of the fact that we are very much killing the planet. Seeing a desert-like park space would have been unthinkable when I was a child; I grew up with both my primary and secondary schools having access to large amounts of green space, and I welcomed that. It was nice to be able to be outside, and for the outside to feel like it had some life to it — without that "life" being, like, lots of bugs and spiders or shit like that. I have fond memories, both of my early childhood and my teenage years, of spending time just sitting on the grass with friends (and occasionally having farting competitions), enjoying one another's company and the pleasant environment that we were able to take advantage of.
At this point, there is just plain no denying that there are significant issues with the climate. "England's green and pleasant land" shouldn't look like a barren wasteland you'd expect to see dried-up tumbleweed rolling across. And yet that's where we are right now. It's scary stuff, and at the rate we're going I wonder if we'll be able to get things back to how they "should" be — whatever that might be.
Anyway, maudlin thoughts about the fate of the planet aside, I have been enjoying getting out and about. Although it's been pretty warm in the daytime, I've found going out around 7pm has a good balance between having some light left and the air just generally being a bit cooler thanks to the sun starting to set. I've even seen marginal improvements in my own performance over just those three days — not that I'm particularly caring about performance right now, since the goal is just to get out and do something, but it is nice to see that just a little effort can pay off almost immediately.
So yeah. I'm going to enjoy a night off tonight, then get back out there tomorrow. Now I have Salmonids to splat!
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Well, I went and did it. I set up a Bandcamp specifically for my old electronic music nonsense under the name "sonicfunkstars". When I feel like actually sitting down and using all those samples I spent several days copying over, I will be resurrecting the sonicfunkstars name for some new stuff — but in the meantime, you can… enjoy(?) this thoroughly silly selection of crap from 20 years ago if you really want to. Here's the link, and read on if you want a bit more context. If WordPress lets you embed Bandcamp stuff I might even embed it below, but I've never tried that so I don't know if it works as I type this sentence. I guess we'll find out in a minute.
What do you know? It works. Okay, I had to install a plugin. But that plugin works.
Here's the official first sonicfunkstars album, consisting of some early experiments using ACID Music and culminating in a thoroughly silly track composed in collaboration with my friends Woody and Edd, whose title should be fairly self-explanatory.
I was originally inspired to get into using ACID Music by my brother doing some experiments with it under the artist name "ME", and I thought it looked like fun. My friends and I had also spent some time fiddling around with Dance eJay and had developed a taste for sample manipulation, so ACID Music was a natural next step. I had great fun putting these tracks together, even if they have absolutely no concept of "mastering" and the album as a whole has no real concept or theme holding it together.
The title "some vapid fool" came from the University Theatre Group's obsession with the words "vapid", "facile" and "asinine", which we used at every opportunity. Making an album seemed like a prime opportunity to do so, particularly when combined with that cover art — which, yes, is me, aged approximately 18 years of age, drinking in Chamberlain Bar, our nearest halls of residence-based drinking establishment. It was '70s night when that photo was taken, and I am sporting some charity shop specials.
Much like the first album, this second one was largely experimental — though this time I incorporated a combination of MIDI sequenced tracks and live-recorded keyboards on top of the samples. There is a vague concept to this one — it's supposed to be a sort of reflection of the hormonal turmoil of my mind during my university years, and I think the somewhat… back-and-forth nature of its emotional core reflects how I was feeling at the time rather well. There's some tracks among this lot that I really like, and a few that I'm mildly embarrassed by. I have left off the one I am most embarrassed by, in which I attempted to rap. That one is never seeing public release.
This short little collection of tracks was composed for a Klik and Play project I had been working on, in which a London bus repeatedly attacked a taxi for no real reason whatsoever, other than the fact we thought it was funny and those were two of the default sprites in Klik and Play. The… album, EP, whatever you want to call it, was an attempt to remix a single track into multiple different styles, with the exception of The Bus Shop, which is loosely (all right, quite heavily) inspired by the first village theme from Xenogears.
Finally, we come to probably my favourite collection of tracks, composed for my "Gold Edition" remake of a Klik and Play project we had made at sixth form. The original game used MIDIs we'd downloaded from the Internet, but for Gold Edition I wanted to compose an entire soundtrack. So I did!
NOTE: The first track, Pie-Eater's Megamix, contains some naughty language. Sorry about that. It was more than 20 years ago. We are better people now. Probably.
I've also just noticed that I hyphenated "Pie-Eater's" in the first track and not any of the others. I must now correct this.
Then there's this, which was the result of watching Shrek multiple times in one weekend (including playing with the "dubbing" feature on the DVD) and then getting roaringly drunk. The storyline was entirely improvised. You can't really tell.
And finally, this, which consists primarily of samples recorded during rehearsals for our 2002 trip to the Edinburgh Fringe to put on Alan Ayckbourn's Round and Round the Garden.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the tracks and the albums. Please do not feel obliged to buy any of them, as you can stream them for free; I only put a nominal price on them so it doesn't eat into an allocation of free downloads per month. If you really want to own a copy of these, though, I won't stop you.
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
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I'm increasingly convinced that there comes a point in your life where your tastes — in every respect — are just plain "locked", and it becomes very difficult to change them. This even extends to stepping out of your comfort zone when it comes to other works by people that you like.
I am thinking of this with particular regard to musical tastes, as I went out for a walk this evening, and rather than taking the opportunity to listen to something new to me, I decided to put on DJ Yoda's How to Cut & Paste Mix Tape Vol. 1. To be fair, this is an album I haven't actually listened to for quite a long time, so in a way it was a bit of a change from constantly spinning one track from the Gal*Gun 2 soundtrack (this one, if you were curious) because said track makes me smile. But there are also other DJ Yoda albums that I have never listened to — and, going on the fact I enjoyed How to Cut & Paste Vol. 1, 2 and '80s Edition plus Unthugged, I will probably enjoy them also. And yet. And yet. Here I am, hitting Play on things I've been listening to since 2001.
I'm conscious of this every time I put on Dream Theater's Octavarium, an album I like 100% because I enjoyed Panic Attack in Rock Band on the grounds it "sounds a bit like Castlevania", instead of trying out any of their other albums.
I'm conscious of it every time I listen to Movement in Still Life by BT — and it has to be the version of it I'm familiar with — because I remember being introduced to that specific album by my brother, and buying a copy the next time I had the opportunity.
I'm conscious of it every time I listen to Time by ELO, because it's an album I have fond memories of listening to with my Dad.
And I'm conscious of it every time, when faced with the limitless possibilities today's streaming platforms provide, I inevitably revert to the exact same few albums, time after time. Which were likely the ones I ripped and uploaded to Google Play Music before they made it shitter and turned it into YouTube Music anyway.
I don't have a physical CD collection any more, aside from a bunch of soundtrack CDs I've acquired from various limited edition releases of video games. For many years, I didn't regret getting rid of the pile of CDs I had — a collection which dated back to my teenage years, and Oasis' Definitely Maybe, the first piece of popular music I bought for myself with my own money — but just recently, I have been missing them. I have been feeling tempted to make an attempt at rebuilding a collection — with the main thing that is stopping me being the fact I don't think I have a lot of room for CDs. (Although I feel like I could probably make room quite easily.)
I know what will happen if I do that, though: I will inevitably pick up all the albums I remember owning, and probably not anything else. After all, why on Earth would you take a risk on buying some music that you might not like?
This is silly, of course, and it's in direct opposition to how I used to feel about buying music. I used to have absolutely zero shame in the music I bought, as it happens — and I still do feel that way in some respects. I'll listen to pretty much anything, regardless of how cool or uncool it might be — although I do tend to draw the line at tedious X-Factor ballads.
It's just that, as I've grown older, I've felt more and more ensconced in that one canonical set of "albums I like", and stepping outside of that always feels surprisingly difficult — even when it comes to artists whose output I, generally speaking, know that I like.
So y'know what. In an attempt to broaden my own horizons, when I go out for another walk one evening later in the week, I will make an effort to pick something I have never heard before from an artist that I know I like as the accompaniment. I might even discover some new favourites!
As for tonight, I had forgotten about the track called Stupid Poo on How to Cut & Paste Mix Tape Vol. 1 that uses farting as a significant part of the beat, and I thoroughly enjoyed rediscovering it. I will leave that with you.
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I dread to think how much money I have spent on headphones over the years. I never buy particularly pricy ones — I think the most expensive ones I've bought were some nice noise-cancelling Sony ones a while back, which I use when recording videos — but I do get through 'em. I'm annoyed that probably my favourite headphones of all time — a pair of Sennheiser on-ear headphones that cost me about £35 — went missing and I have no idea where, but no matter; I have replaced them a bajillion times over since.
My most recent acquisition in this department is a set of "bone-conducting" headphones. I have been curious to try this technology for a while, and as it was a nice day without being "can't breathe" levels of hot today, I thought I would go for a walk and try them out.
For the unfamiliar, bone-conducting headphones are exactly what they sound like. Rather than sticking them in or on your ear, they sit just in front of your ear on the bony bit that is there. They then transmit the sound through that bone and into the complicated stuff that is inside your ear. This means they bypass your eardrum, which has a number of benefits — most notably allowing those with hearing issues to hear things much better than through things you put in or on your ear — but for me their main appeal element is the fact that… well, they don't sit in or on your ear.
I don't like earbuds because I've never found a pair that are comfortable or that will stay in — and with how bloody tiny wireless ones are these days, I'd be terrified of losing them if I'd paid any sort of premium for them. I do like over-ear headphones, but they do make my head hot, so they're not especially practical for wearing out and about, particularly in the summer. And you just don't really seem to see on-ear headphones much these days. At least, I haven't. Maybe I just haven't really been looking.
These bone-conducting headphones I got were a cheapo pair from Amazon, because I wasn't about to pay through the nose for these if they were any sort of unknown quantity. They're wireless, have USB-C charging and Bluetooth, which is all I really needed. There are fancier (and much more expensive) pairs you can get that have on-board music storage, heavier waterproofing that lets you use them while swimming, and all manner of other features, but I figured just for now, just to begin with, something basic and affordable would be plenty.
And they are! I wore them out for a walk around the Common earlier today, and they definitely do the job. Music is audible and clear, and the fact they're not stuffed in your ears means that if you keep the volume down a bit you can still hear everything going on around you; if you turn the volume up, meanwhile, you can get almost as much immersion in the sound as with a regular pair of earphones.
Sound quality is okay. If you had a Walkman back in the day and had a pair of those over-ear headphones with the foam ear covers, the sound quality seemed roughly equivalent to a pair like that — nothing super-remarkable, a little lacking in the bass end, but perfectly adequate for most things, particularly if "listening to music" is not the primary activity on your agenda and you just want some background noise.
I'm surprised how effectively the bone-conducting method works. I was expecting it to feel weird or be somehow "unusual", but when the music's on, it just sounds like it's being piped into your ears like with a regular pair of headphones. The only real notable difference I noticed is beyond a certain volume level, you can feel the vibrations a little bit, giving a slight tickly sensation around the temples. I found a decent balance between sound quality, not being tickled and being able to hear important noises around me to be a few steps down from max volume, whereas on a lot of other headphones I tend to find myself whacking them up to max and leaving it there.
While I'm not going to go and recommend these things as a replacement for proper audiophile gear — I suspect even the more expensive models will be somewhat limited in their sound quality by the very nature of the tech — they're absolutely a great solution for having some music on while you're out and about, and they're discreet enough that you can just leave them on all the time even while you're not actively using them.
I'm definitely going to be using these a lot more, as I'm definitely (haha) going to be getting out and having a nice walk on a more semi-regular basis than I have been. Weather-permitting, of course; I suspect with how most days have been of late, I will be having a lot of evening walks rather than going in the daytime!
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
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